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You might not have made it to Mesa for the Digital Southwest Regional Broadband Summit, but you can now watch some of the speakers and panel conversations. Next Century Cities has posted video from panel conversations and the keynote address from Commissioner Mignon Clyburn.

In her address, Commissioner Clyburn said:

“Access to high-speed broadband is a necessity in today’s 21st century economy, providing a gateway to jobs, education, and healthcare. I am honored to join state and local leaders who are on the front lines of closing the digital and opportunities divide. Working together, we can achieve our shared goal of affordable broadband for all Americans.”

The Commissioner’s full remarks were about 18 minutes long:

Sharing Knowledge on Infrastructure

Christopher moderated Panel Two, focused on infrastructure needs, which included CISSP President and CTO of CityLink Telecommunications John Brown, Partner at Conexon Jonathan Chambers, Director of Technology at the Southern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association Matt Rantanen, Manager of Tribal Critical Infrastructure at Amerind Riskand Kimball Sekaquaptewa, and Vice President of Digital Innovation at Magellan Advisors Jory Wolf. If you listen to the Community Broadband Bits podcast, you’ll probably recognize most of these voices.

One year ago, we helped launch Next Century Cities, a collaboration between local governments that want to ensure fast, reliable, affordable Internet access for all. Our own Chris Mitchell, as Policy Director, has helped shape the organization with Executive Director Deb Socia and Deputy Director Todd O'Boyle.

Over the past 12 months:

Membership has grown from 32 communities to 121

Population represented by Next Century Cities has climbed from 6.5 million to 23.9 million

For this week on Community Broadband Bits, Lisa Gonzalez takes the mic to interview Deb Socia, Executive Director of Next Century Cities, and me, the Policy Director for Next Century Cities (which I do within my capacity at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance).

We talk about the report, why we picked the policies we did, why we stuffed it full of examples, and as a bonus, Deb gives us an update of Next Century Cities and upcoming events.

Join Chris and several other experts on municipal networks on April 25th as they address a crowd in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Yellow-Springs.Net, a group of residents who have rallied together to organize a movement to explore broadband as a utility in their community, will host the Fiber Forum. The event is titled "Building a Municipal Fiber Network in Yellow Springs." Chris will be joining via Skype for his presentation.

The forum will provide community members with insights on the advantages of having a municipal broadband network that would translate into high-speed, affordable Internet access in Yellow Springs. Springs-Net posits that, by optimizing Internet access with fiber, the Village would address strategic, economic, communication and municipal service goals.

Yellow Springs, a member of Next Century Cities, has put dig once policies in place and hopes to make use of its electric utility and a local data center to facilitate a fiber network deployment. In addition to bringing fiber to each premise in the village, community leaders hope to use the network for smart grid technology and to bring Wi-Fi to the downtown area.

The Forum is free to the public and speakers will present from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. Other speakers include:

Thank to Jeff Hoel for providing the transcript for Episode 121 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast with Deb Socia of Next Century Cities. Listen to this episode here.

00:04:

Deb Socia: ... communities must have self-determination -- that making decisions at the level of the community is where the best decisions get made.

00:13:

Lisa Gonzalez: Hello there. And welcome again to the Community Broadband Bits Podcast, from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. I'm Lisa Gonzalez.

Once again, Chris is out on the road, and he's sharing his experiences with us. This past week, Chris was in Santa Monica for the kickoff of the Next Century Cities. The organization is a city-to-city collaboration advocating fast, affordable, and reliable Internet access for everyone. As one of the organizers, Chris moderated a panel of CIOs from member communities. While he was there, Chris also took a few moments to connect with Deb Socia, Executive Director of the organization. In this interview, the two discuss the organization's membership, principles, and the role of they expect to play in improving Internet access across the U.S. Video of the full event is available at nextcenturycities.org . It includes the mayors' panel discussion, moderated by Susan Crawford, in addition to the panel discussion moderated by Chris. Here are Deb and Chris, discussing Next Century Cities, with info on how your community can join.

01:14:

Chris Mitchell: Welcome to anther edition of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast. This is another live edition. This is Chris Mitchell. And today I'm with Deb Socia, Executive Director of the newly-launched Next Century Cities. Welcome to the show.

01:28:

Deb Socia: Thank you. Wonderful to be here.

01:30:

Chris: You and I are working together on this Next Century Cities. And we're speaking a day before it launches, and it will air a day after it launches.

01:37:

Deb: Yeah.

01:37:

Chris: So it's a -- you know, it'll be a little interesting to try and figure out how to phrase things properly. But you're the Executive Director. And I'm doing some policy work, as my title is Policy Director. And that's within my capacity. So people shouldn't be confused. I'm still with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance...

This week, we helped to launch Next Century Cities, a collaborative effort of local governments that are making smart investments and partnerships to ensure their communities have fast, affordable, and reliable Internet access.

Deb Socia is the Executive Director of Next Century Cities, coming to it from a nonprofit organization she developed in Boston called Tech Goes Home that works to increase digital inclusion. Via my capacity at ILSR, I am the policy director for NCC, so I have been working with Deb behind the scenes to launch Next Century Cities. This week, we spend a few minutes talking about this new organization.

Next Century Cities is an exciting collection of 32 founding community partners with incredible diversity. From large cities to small, right-leaning to left-leaning. Some are municipal networks and some have partnered with private companies. If you think your community would like to join, have the Mayor or a public official contact NCC.

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Removing restrictions on community broadband can expand high-speed Internet access in underserved areas, spurring economic growth and improvements in government services, while enhancing competition. Giving the citizens of Chattanooga and leaders like Mayor Berke the power to make these decisions for themselves is not only the right thing to do; it’s the smart thing to do.